Zam Zam Restaurant

Zam Zam Salabim, is all I can say. This restaurant is truly enchanting, as it offers amazing halal Indian breakfast. It may look simple, but it tastes fantastic.

We order different pancakes (with cheese, onions and lamb stuffed), which correctly are called Prata here. They actually rather remind me of puff pastry than pancakes. Anyway, the way of eating Pratas: you rip off a piece of them and dip it into tasty veggie, fish or meat curry sauce. What a heavenly mess!

In addition to the Pratas, the Biryani is the signature dish of Zam Zam. The main component of these dishes is flavored rice. It will come with spicy roasted meat. You can also order a vegetarian version, of course. The rice is roasted with a good amount of onions, chilies and nut. Sometimes they will add a few raisins. Biryani is often served with yogurt and mango chutney.

Came to Zam Zam to try murtabak and it was pretty good! I went with the mutton version and was surprised that I really couldn't taste the gamey flavor, maybe because it's ground and then scrambled with egg? The crepe it was wrapped it had a roti-like texture that was crispy, delicate, and chewy. It was also delivered with some curry on the side which really packed some heat but was also really really good!

With my murtabak I ordered an iced teh c (ice tea with condensed milk) and it was very refreshing as all iced drinks are in Singapore lol.

SGD 9 for this hearty breakfast

Zam Zam is a longstanding Indian restaurant in Little India with plenty of tables on the first and second floor. It's a sit down restaurant with an extensive menu with Indian classics as well as some dishes that demonstrate the Singaporean influence on Indian cuisine. Their drink options even have the classic tehs and kopis. Regrettably, I was already quite full before I arrived so my sister and I only ordered one dish to share, but the servers were super nice in explaining the dishes we didn't recognize.

Tulang Merah (4.5/5): This is a dish that the internet says was invented by the Indian community in Singapore and is a bright red mutton bone marrow curry. Honestly, I had no idea what to expect, but it was perfectly balanced between sweet, savory, and spicy. The mix of spices was super unusual and while I'd never had anything like it before, I'm sad that I don't think I'll get to have this again any time soon. I did struggle a bit with getting to the bone marrow and eventually caved and asked for a straw, which worked great.

Their online info said they opened at 7a. We showed up at 8a and the proprietor was rude and said they opened at 9a. We were willing to wait and asked if they had vegetarian options like we saw online. Again, he was rude and said no, they did not have vegetarian options. In unrelated news, nice views of the mosque from here.

This restaurant came highly recommended for Indian food. Since our family was visiting the Sultan Mosque, Zam Zam was a perfect choice, since it was right across the street from the mosque. We were seated on the second floor of the restaurant, which had air conditioning. Yay. There were many tables to be seated at. But, the tables were too close to each other. So, it felt quite cramped.

Our waiter arrived to take our order. We got the mutton murtabak, mutton biryani, and pulled hot milk tea. Everything that we ordered was delicious. The murtabak tasted like an eggy, floury pancake with tons of flavorful mutton inside. Also, the rice in the biryani had a great fluffy texture. They didn't skimp on the mutton in this dish either. What I was quite impressed with was the pulled milk tea. It was such an aromatic tea, and had the right amount of sweet condensed milk. It was even better than the best pulled milk tea I've had in Hong Kong.

The only thing was that the customer service was quite brutish here. It's probably best to be very direct with what you want to order. You can point to the menu items you want to get. Also, be sure to confirm your orders too, since our waiter initially got our order wrong. He had to flag down another waiter to help him make sure our order was correct. Otherwise, when I visit Singapore again, I'll definitely be back here for their delicious food and milk tea.

I've been on a Martabak craze since I landed in SIN about a 5 days ago. And I had to go to this place. Their Indian Martabak is really good. It's close to what I remembered all those years ago in Indonesia. However, I think the Indo Indian Martabak had other things in it besides just meat and the martabak itself. Regardless, love this place.

The Cik that was helping me was a little terse, but nice enough to hook this brother up w/ a martabak at close to 11 PM. Terima kasih Cik.

Authentic Murtabak and briyani, according my Friend from Saudi Arabia! My first time trying the cuisine and it was delicious! We finished all of our food and ordered a second mutton murtabak cuz it was that good
Teh ice (iced milk tea) is a must try as well

Zam Zam, thank you, Ma'am. This place is right on Arab Street, directly in front of the Sultan Mosque. The specialization here is biryani and murtabak.

I found the biryani to be on the bare side. It's got a good mix of spices for complexity, and although the mutton was tender and easy to peel, I've had better. Murtabak is very good. The deer option is their popular one, and it's good. It's an ideal shareable item. It's pretty bulky, and it's filling. They're generous with the meat portion inside. Also, you can try the fish head curry. My opinion? It's just okay. It makes for a good picture, but I found the actual fish to be rather tough- not as flaky/peel-able.

This place has been featured on some travel programs, and it's also a popular YouTube travel vlog destination. That said, despite being a legitimate landmark mamak shop, I'll say that the food is good, but not amazingly outstanding as I initially expected. If you're from Malaysia, you probably will not be impressed, and there's a 90% chance you'll say/brag to some extent about how the mamak food in Malaysia is better than Singapore. Otherwise, this food will probably blow your tourist mind away. It's good though.

2.5 stars
Singapore Zam Zam is a busy, busy "Indian Muslim food" restaurant near Bugis. There's open air seating on the first floor and a much larger air conditioned dining room on the second floor. To eat, we started with the mutton biryani, which was a pile of basmati rice with a tender piece of mutton in the center and a creamy curry on the side. Though tasty, I found the rice to be rather bland (compared to some other biryanis I've had), since it wasn't actually cooked with the meat or with many spices. We also had the special deer murtabak, a stuffed flatbread filled with ground deer and egg. Overall, the murtabak was rather bland and flavorless--it came with a curry on the side for dipping, but otherwise had almost no flavor. On the plus side, the portion sizes here were definitely generous for the price, but I can't say I get the hype about Zam Zam.

Are people really complaining about the service? It's an old school Indian Muslim restaurant that's here to serve you delicious food, not chat with you about your day and check up every 5 mins to see how your food tastes. Get the local experience and order food with no frills (even if that means getting your own water).

Anyways, this place has become a bit touristy (see my point above), but my local friends still come here for one reason and one reason only. The murtabak. The mutton murtabak + teh tarik has been my winning combo and it's what brings me back every time I'm in town.

They have indoor and outdoor seating. I elected to sit outside, as it is located right across from some historic buildings in Little India/Arab Street. It's a great spot for people watching over lunch.

The staff are very friendly. I'm an indecisive eater when it comes to new menus, and they were able to make really helpful (and delicious) recommendations. If you're the appetite bigger than your actual stomach type like me, you can dine in and order take out at the same time. The staff are super helpful with that.

This is also located in the optimal spot for anyone who has some time to take a stroll through the rest of Little India/Arab Street. Overall, I would definitely recommend this place to other tourists who are in the area!